This article is mainly made for all the readers out there watching anime or reading manga, even if you don’t have any interest whatsoever in Asian animated stories but have a passion for MMO games in general or only a specific MMO game that is “your” game. Stay and read on, for even if the focus is on five anime shows they are discussed from a MMO gaming viewpoint on how and why they would make excellent MMO game. I will not discuss anime shows that are about an MMO game in any way, since they clearly will work as an MMO game and all fact from the game is already there. I will instead theorize on how five anime shows not connected to games in the show can be translated into an MMO game, even if some of them already are made into games in other genres, and some of them do exist as a browser made MMO game or a community created one. Here I will talk about them as fully fledged AAA MMO games.
Hunter X Hunter is set in a world where the ultimate profession in many ways is to become a hunter, and the series follows a young boy on his journey to becoming a hunter in search for his father. Hunters are skilled in a myriad of ways and can upon completion choose what kind of hunter they would want to be, with everything from a hunter who can gather supplies and cook delicious meals to one whom catches murderers and thieves. This opens up for the possibilities of classes in an MMO game, and one can imagine it more as a sandbox game than a theme park game, where you start out by doing a quest chain in order to become a hunter and during the course of it get to try out all the classes in the game, and upon completion of the hunter quests, you are free to choose what hunter you will become and live in the world acting as one. For those players whom don’t have any interest in building things or cooking food, there will of course be lots of quest based on fighting. The series is also heavily focused on tournaments from time to time which would work great as PvP for the game.
Hunter X Hunter
As with all series on this list they can be seen as mainstream anime shows and Naruto might be the biggest one of them in terms of how many people know or have heard of the show. If you still haven’t encountered Naruto in anyway or is still figuring out what the series is all about, I will give you a short introduction. The series takes place in a world of ninjas spread among five great ninja countries. But these are not your common ninjas, in Naruto there is something called chakra which is not the classical healing power found around the world, but is utilized as more in the terms of mana. They can then use the chakra to power different ninja abilities ranging from pure fighting one, to controlling different elements of the world or by controlling others minds. Making a Naruto MMO game and staying true to the series would be a very non-complicated part. We have five countries which would act as five different factions to choose from, and there could be different classes depending on what chakra and elements your character will be attuned for. By taking this already created parts and putting them in a huge sandbox PvP game where the different countries fight for supremacy, make pacts with each other, and where the best players can be the ruler of the country in the same way as Archlord rewards their best players.
Naruto
The series is about a young boy who dies and then comes back to life with the power to see and to stop demons that are entering our world and wreaking havoc. During his journey in encounters others with this gift whom help him in defending earth, both in the streets and in official tournaments held to encourage competitive fighting instead of destroying cities. This series would work perfect as a PVP focused action MMO where tournaments are held both in the human world and in the demon world, where the players could fight amongst themselves before bigger tournaments are held where they could fight against each other. Given that series also show demons fighting in the human world, this also opens up for open PvP where demon players can enter the human world for PvP and PvE based quests and the human players are given quests to stop them. So while I think this should be a PvP focused game, there could still be a good PvE part to it, perhaps in combination to the PvP. One could also imagine dungeons\ raids where Human player s try to stop big invasions of demons lead by big bosses and how demon players can raid the human world in instanced areas.
Yu Yu Hakusho
Together with Naruto I am guessing Bleach to be the series most people have heard of before but also a series already made into countless of videogames, but still no big MMO game. The series focuses on a boy who gets the power to act as substitute “death god”, meaning he is to protect the living in his town from when monster (really humans who have not found peace after death and then turned to monsters) attack the town. And in doing so the audience is introduced to soul society where all the real “death gods” live and the world where all the lost souls come from, whom are lead by a group of intellectual monsters trying to destroy the world. Like most MMO games out there we have here to clear factions, one good and one evil. Depending on what side you chose to fight for, you will either start in soul socity as the good guys or in the monsters world as one of them. And by playing your way upwards in levels you will gain new and powerful skills as either faction, reaching further into the other faction’s territories. This like most series I discuss today have a golden opportunity for a good PvP section, where Bleach could follow in line with Warhammer Online and Dark Age of Camelot and have sieges and move closer to one another’s main town and with trying to take it from the other faction.
Bleach
Lastly we have Fullmetal Alchemist which is set in a parallel universe to our times 1920s, where alchemy has been heavily studied and developed. In the series we follow two brothers, where one has lost his arms and legs and the other his whole body (his soul is trapped in an armor). In the series they trying to do forbidden alchemy, and heir search to make it all right again. The world is a beautiful mix of early 20th century and steampunk and unlike the other series discussed here, more suited for a pure PvE experience. Where the players get to play an upcoming alchemist and choosing a specialty (class) like fire alchemy which would be DPS or stone alchemy which would be a Tanking class etc. Putting a focus on story, the players would then explore the world and undercover its mysteries while battling through hidden laboratories together or by raiding infected small towns ruled by evil alchemists.
Fullmetal Alchemist
These are all series I like and think would be great as MMO games, and I do know there are thousands of shows out there which could make that awesome MMO game. This has just been a small taste of how I think many MMO gamers think about shows they are following, and if you have yet to think of your favorite series as an MMO, try it the next time you watch it.
